Columbia Professors Visiting Ahmadinejad to APOLOGIZE

Remember the “little” controversy that arose when Columbia University gave a platform to American Hating- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, this past fall. Well if you thought it was all over YOU WERE VERY WRONG. Iranian media are reporting that a delegation of Columbia University faculty members are planning a trip to Tehran to apologize to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the reception he received when he came to the school.

The Mehr News Agency quoted an unnamed member of the prospective delegation as saying the apology was the main aim of the trip, which would also include visits to Iranian universities and seminaries.

Columbia University was criticized — by leading 2008 presidential candidates among others — for inviting the Iranian leader to speak on campus while he was in New York City for the fall U.N. General Assembly session.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger delivered introductory remarks in which he challenged Ahmadinejad over his “absurd” denial of the Holocaust, his views on Israel’s destruction, Iran’s human rights record, and its support for terror groups – including those fighting U.S. troops in Iraq.

Ahmadinejad, he said, exhibited the traits of a “petty and cruel dictator.”

In his reply, Iran’s president denied that free speech was outlawed in his country, and invited Bollinger to visit and see for himself.

Scores of Columbia professors and others later signed a statementtaking Bollinger to task. They said his remarks during Ahmadinejad’s visit “allied the university with the Bush administration’s war in Iraq, a position anathema to many in the university community.”

Dozens more faculty members then signed a second statement, dissenting from the first group’s stance.